Train In Vain

Jericho’s Milleridge Inn recently threw a party for wary commuters after yet another ungodly delay at Penn Station. Owners of the Inn dubbed the party “LIRR Sucks” and invited embattled travelers to trade in their train tickets for a free drink.

If the Milleridge Inn plans to give away free drinks every time there is an LIRR delay, two conclusions are inevitable: the Inn will go out of business and we will all become alcoholics.

Traveling to and from the city with the Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit has never been an easy endeavor. The crush of the morning and evening commutes, along with weekend getaways, is exacerbated by the abject horror that is Penn Station. Everyone by now is familiar with those photos revealing Penn Station as it existed before it was transformed into a claustrophobic concrete rat den in the 1960s. One such photo is on display in the transit hub’s own lobby area—you can see it while you endure massive delays shoulder to shoulder with your fellow traveler.

Old Penn Station is gone and it is not coming back. There is nothing any of us can do about that. What we can do is demand that our main artery to and through the city is reliable, safe and as technologically advanced as possible. With the amount of money the Metropolitan Transit Authority rakes in from residents and the sheer volume of cash we willingly spend to revel in all the city has to offer, the train ride in should feel as though we are gliding in on golden chariots of luxury.

Instead, we are made to trudge along on crowded, creaky train cars that are prone to fire, succumb meekly to rain and smell as though the toilets are in a constant state of overflow.